Here’s another installment of our monthly playlist curating noteworthy new songs from the Minnesota music scene. It also can be streamed via Spotify.
Agnes Uncaged, ‘Paperdoll’
The sisters-led Minneapolis quartet formerly known as Creeping Charlie hired veteran indie-rock producer John Agnello to oversee its new album, “Cyanotype.” This lead track evokes a long-ago Agnello subject, Sonic Youth, with its warped, wicked guitar blur and frontwoman Julia Eubanks’ disenchanted melodies.
Cory Wong with Yam Haus, ‘One Way Road’
After mostly serving up sly funk and playful dance-rock on his previous LPs and sold-out concerts, the guitar-master bandleader veers into an ‘80s pop sound on his album arriving this week, “Lost in the Wonder.” This synth- and piano-laden collaborative single with his fellow nice-guy Twin Citian rockers is a happy-loners’ anthem that could’ve closed out a John Hughes film.
King Pari, ‘Candy Eyes’
Former Nooky Jones singer Cameron Kinghorn and his partner in chill stoner-funk, Joe Paris Christensen, turn royally Prince-like on the duo’s latest ear-candy single. Slick, sexy, come-hither falsetto vocals give way to a fun, weirdo, synth-grind fadeout jam.
Pert Near Sandstone, ‘Pipe Dream’
The blue-grassy string pickers of Blue Ox Music Festival fame know their Ralph Stanley tunes well but also are showing off their Paul Westerberg records here. This rousing, hooky, blazer of a song — all-acoustic, mind you — rocks with unabandoned misery and clever, guttural wordplay.
Gill Weather, ‘Art A Whirl’
Hardly a lighthearted tribute to northeast Minneapolis’ annual bar- and gallery-hopping soiree, this urgent epic from indie-rocker Valentine Lowry-Ortega — who recently changed her band’s moniker from the former Oceanographer — rips into a guy with a penchant for wearing bad jewelry and grooming high-school girls. A sample of her lyrical rhymes: “idiot” with “piece of … .”
David Huckfelt, ‘Anything’
On his new album celebrating some of his all-time favorite songwriters (i.e. Dylan, Zevon, Lightfoot), the Iowa cornfield-grown Minneapolis folk troubadour formerly of the Pines makes a strong case for the Minnesota-reared singer of Big Thief, Adrianne Lenker, deserving a high ranking. Huckfelt and his all-star Unarmed Forces crew, including guitarist Jeremy Ylvisaker and bassist Mike Lewis, turned her light, acoustic love ditty into a thick, ambient, meditative, electric dust storm of a song.
Durry, ‘Told You So’
Of the many, many new songs put out by local musicians in recent weeks reacting to and protesting ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, this noisy anthem seems like it’s one for the ages. Frontman Austin Durry — who’s raised the art of self-deprecation in previous hits — points his wry lyricism at relatives who get their news from Facebook memes and “don’t trust neighbors, friends, family.” The single is available only as a Bandcamp download benefiting the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee.
